


“Sessions”

by AhmedA01



Category: 1960s Music Scene RPF, British Singers RPF, Music RPF, Rock Music RPF, The Beatles
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 19:53:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1238833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AhmedA01/pseuds/AhmedA01
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A songwriting session at John’s place takes an unexpected turn. One of my earliest stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	“Sessions”

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing. Obviously. Unfortunately.

My room was located at the top of the stairs, a comfortably furnished bedroom on the first floor of Mendips, at 251 Menlove Avenue, a fruity little middle-class neighbourhood with tree-lined walks and noisy children playing under the watchful eye of plump middle-aged housewives. It was a bright and airy room; small gusts of wind dancing in from the outside, filtered sunlight streaming through a spotless window encircled by heavy drapes, a low hanging Oak lightly brushing against the windowpane. Mimi had a habit of coming in every morning; her light footfalls moving towards the window, each tread sounding like the blast of cannons in the early light. Then, accompanied by the imaginary fanfare of golden trumpets, her hands swept the curtains aside, the sudden glare of brightness shocking me into consciousness. She never could understand my penchant for sleeping in late, saying that I was dreaming the day and me life away. I never saw how any bloody harm could come from it. After all, I was only sleeping.

In a corner of the room, a tall wardrobe, made of deep dark wood, stood, the once rich colour of the timber dulled through years of use, giving of an aged warmth. Its top was littered with crumpled sheets of paper, guitar picks, my much-used tube of Brylcreem, and small-teethed combs. A mirror stood tall atop the wardrobe as well; its back up against the wall, my pin-ups of a scantily clad Brigitte Bardot and pictures of Elvis, Buddy Holly, and Lonnie Donnegan taped haphazardly in the corners. Good times were had with that Brigitte Bardot picture, many good times, if you know what I mean. A small wooden desk fashioned from the same rich lumber as the wardrobe took up the wall beside the window; worn, dog-eared books and notebooks covering its surface, the odd pen or pencil strewn across, their ends marred with the deep bites made through intense concentration. Tattered paper peeked through the edges of hastily closed drawers; a desk chair pushed unceremoniously to the side, black leather jackets draped over its high back. A large bed sat majestically in the middle of the room, a stout nightstand by its side, its surface home to cups of tepid tea and the slightly glowing ends of cigarette butts left forgotten. The typical room of a teenage boy, I suppose.

Mimi was out that day, visiting one of me aunties, which made it easier for Paul to come over for a writing session. His Da was getting a bit suspicious from the mysterious disappearances of his eggs and Typhoo Tea, the eggs that Paul and I consumed and the tea that we smoked in Paul’s dad’s pipe the afternoons that we sagged off from school. So, instead of telling his dad to piss off like I told him to often enough, Paul suggested that we meet at my house for a change, but only for that day of course. After all, Mimi would undoubtedly throw a fit if Paul ever tried to come over a bit too often, her nose turning up at the sight of that “Doe-eyed common boy,” as she liked to call him. So we sat, uninterrupted for once, the soft strumming of twin guitars filling the room, in tandem with the sounds from the turntable, a slightly battered Elvis record playing in the background, his croons filling the room. Paul and I sat on the bed, guitars on hand, our heads held close together, two pairs of eyes focused on a small notebook, the first page headed with the title, “Another Lennon/McCartney original” written in Paul’s slanted handwriting. Uncapped pens of blue and black lay nearby, slowly increasing spots of ink appearing on the coverlet.

“All right,” Paul said, his fingers poised above his upside down acoustic guitar, pick at hand, eyes trained on the frets as he anticipated the first chord. “What have we got so far?”

“Here we go,” I replied, as I moved to lean my back against the cherry headboard, legs encased in too tight black denim stretched out in front of me, dark eyes squinting at the notebook held loosely in me hands. The words were without a doubt, blurry in front of me eyes, an absence of glasses making it nearly impossible to read the damn page. I knew that I should wear me glasses, but they made me look like such a fuckin’ queer, so, I tried to avoid it as much as possible. For most of my life, I had bluffed my way through anything that required good eyesight, though trying to bluff my way through the scene that was to unfold that day I knew would be a bit difficult, since Paul knew how desperately I needed to wear the dreaded specs.

After a few minutes of silence had passed, Paul looked up in exasperation. “Well, fucking get on with it then,” he exclaimed, an unruly strand of dark hair escaping his “DA” and falling into his eyes, his hand coming up to brush the fallen locks of hair away.

“Piss off,” I retorted angrily, holding the notebook a few centimeters in front of my face. With exaggerated slowness, I turned the book slowly, scrunching up my eyes as I attempted to read the words from all angles. “I’m trying to make out this damn writing of yours. Can’t you write any bigger? Your fuckin’ handwriting is giving me a bleedin’ headache.”

“My handwriting is giving you a headache?” Paul sneered slightly, his eyes trained unflinchingly on me. “If you’d just wear your bloody glasses like you’re supposed to instead of squinting at every little thing, you wouldn’t be getting any headaches. Now be a good lad and put those glasses on.”

“Shurrup, Macca.” I warned, my arms crossing in front of my chest, eyes daring him to push the subject. “I am not putting those fuckin’ glasses on.”

“John love, I don’t have all day. Just put them on,” Paul began condescendingly, placing his guitar on the bed. And then, with that annoying little smirk of his, he continued, “Is poor Johnny afraid, that his tough Teddy boy image will be sullied if word got out that the mighty John Winston Lennon needs glasses otherwise he’d be as blind as a bat?”

Prick. Aloud, I responded testily “Afraid? Who says I’m afraid?”

Well, put the fuckin’ glasses on then,” Paul said smugly, a smile curling his lips, the sod probably happy to have won this installment of our ongoing battle.

"Fuckin’ prat,” I muttered under my breath, as I leaned towards the nightstand, hands rummaging through the top drawer, as books and other odds and ends flew out and hit the floor with loud thuds. Before long, I found a pair of those dreaded glasses, gritty and smudged square lenses rimmed with a thick black. With a look of utter disgust, I placed the glasses on my nose before turning to look at Paul, the makings of a mocking smile apparent on his face. If I had just raised my hand the slightest bit, and moved it forward fast and hard, I could have wiped that smirk off in a mere second

“There you go, look how pretty you look,” he exclaimed, pretending to swoon, his long eyelashes batting feverishly.

With a growl, I almost threw the bloody glasses at him, but since injuring your best friend and the guitarist of your band wouldn’t be the best way to proceed, I settled for throwing him a menacing look instead. Regrettably, the bleedin’ thing did not look too threatening with said monstrosity taking up half of me face.

“Me? Pretty?” I snorted in response. ” I wouldn’t talk, Macca dear. I’m not the one with the baby face, looking so pretty and sweet. A veritable fresh faced babe.”

Scowling, Paul picked his guitar up again. “Shurrup Lennon,” he grumbled his eyes boring into me as his fingers fiddled with the strings of his guitar.

Smiling fiendishly, I continued. “Ooh, did I touch a nerve there? Come on Paulie, don’t pout,” I said mockingly, as I leaned towards him, my hand gently patting his knee. “It’s okay. That sweet face of yours is bound to be a big hit with the toddlers.”

“Piss off John,” he growled, rising to leave but seeming to change his mind almost instantaneously for he sat back down again immediately. Instead, in a tight voice he continued, “Where did we leave off?”

“All right, all right,” I replied, my hands raised in mock surrender. “Bloody hell, someone is in a bad mood today. “

He simply glowered in response.

Sighing, I adjusted the glasses on my face before turning to the notebook that had fallen to the bed sometime in the midst of that small altercation. “Okay, this is what we have, ‘ _Each time I look into your eyes, I see that there a heaven lies, and as I look I see the love of the loved. Someday they’ll see that from the start, my place has been deep in your heart. And in your heart, I see the love of the loved. Though I said it all before, I will say it more and more, now that I’m really sure you love me._ ‘

As I half-sang the lyrics, Paul played the chords back, the soft lilting acoustic guitar complementing my voice. After I was done, Paul continued to play the same chords repeatedly, a light haunting thing.

“Is that it?” Paul asked as he looked up, his fingers slowly coming to a stop as he rested his guitar on the bed, looking at me with those large, dark eyes of his. I suppose they did look slightly like those of a doe

“Yeah, I believe so,” I replied, shaking me head as I placed the notebook on the nightstand, the slight motion jarring the teacups, cold, dark liquid splashing into the saucer. As Paul looked towards his watch, I leaned over quickly, plucking his fallen guitar pick from the bed. Languidly, I played with the small piece of plastic; my guitar roughened fingers running along the smooth edges as my partner started to pat the bed around him, his neck craning as he looked around in slight confusion.

“Johnny, you see my pick anywhere?” he asked, as he peered into the wrinkles of my bedspread, hands lifting the guitar off the bed. “I could’ve sworn that the bloody thing was here just a minute ago.”

Smirking, I flipped the pick in my hands, the light disk rising above my hand, moving soundlessly through the air.

“Pick? What pick?” I asked innocently, placing the small guitar pick between my teeth, biting down on it ever so slightly, the end protruding from between my lips, watching Paul as he kneeled beside the bed.

“The pick that I was just using” he mumbled, his head underneath my bed as he looked on the freshly swept floor below. Raising his body, Paul shook the covers slightly as he rose to his feet, dusting the dirt from his knees. “I know it’s here somewhere,” he exclaimed. “I was just using it. It couldn’t have disappeared into” he trailed off as he lifted his head, his eyes boring into me as he caught sight of the pick in my mouth. “Johnny, is that my fucking guitar pick?”

With a look of feigned innocence, I took the pick out of my mouth, my eyes wide with wonder, as I looked the small piece of plastic over. ‘This little thing, eh? Fucking hell, I wonder how it got in my mouth.”

“Don’t fuck with me Lennon,” Paul practically growled, his outstretched palm in front of me. “Give it back.”

Tempting fate, I leaned back against the headboard, my lips curled into a smirk as I popped the pick back into my mouth, letting it dangle from between my lips. “How can I be sure that it’s yours? It could be anyone’s.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Paul simply sighed, his never-ending supply of patience finally wearing thin. I always seemed to have that effect on him, though me being the oldest, you would think that it would have been the other way around. “John,” he began in a tightly controlled voice, “I’m not in the mood for your antics right now. Just give me the damn guitar pick.”

In a swift move, Paul reached towards me, his fingers lightly grazing my lips as he attempted to snatch the much sought after object away. However, I was much too quick for him, as I deftly plucked the plastic from the edge of my mouth and hid the disk behind me back, clenched tightly in a closed fist, his muttered “Fuck” inciting a small chuckle from me. With a snigger, I looked up at him, my laughing eyes in contrast to his stormy ones, my dark-haired partner not amused by my childishness.

“Lighten up, Macca. I’m just fucking with you. If you want it back so badly, here, come and get it,” I coaxed, my face a picture of innocence as I stretched my hand out in front of me, the guitar pick resting silently in the middle of my palm.

With a look of distrust, Paul reached towards me, his hand hovering over mine as he moved to confiscate his property, but as soon as he moved closer, I quickly closed my hand into a tight grip, moving it behind my back once again.

With a growl, Paul reached towards me, his arms seeking to grab me by the arm, as I, giggling like mad, dove from the bed and backed away from my disgruntled friend quickly.

“Come on, love,” I taunted, dangling it in front of his face face. “Don’t you want your guitar pick back?”

Slowly I moved along the side of the bed, my back to the wall, my legs hitting the front of the nightstand with a small thud. My gaze remained fixed on Paul as he advanced towards me, his steady gait moving him to the center of the room. The expression etched on his face was one of slowly diminishing anger, his full lips twitching slightly as he tried to hold back a small smile, as he continued towards me.

“Lennon,” he muttered with a half-smile, “You will be the death of me.” With every word that fell from his lips, Paul was brought closer and closer until he was standing at the end of the bed, his body blocking one of my means of escape, the door to my room positioned squarely behind him. With a chuckle, he shot me a look of pleased triumph; “Yer trapped Lennon. Nowhere to go. Come ‘head Johnny, be a good lad and give me back what is mine.”

With a look of mock defeat, I shuffled towards him, my head hung low, my shoulders slouched as he eagerly reached out for his pick. When I stood a meter or so away from him, I made a big show of bringing forth my tightly coiled hand, dusting the guitar pick off with infinite care, preparing to hand it over. But of course, as unpredictability dictates, I quickly gave trusting Paulie a quick shove, as I, without so much as a backwards glance, leapt on the bed again, my feet bouncing on the tightly coiled springs, as I cried over my shoulder “I’m not giving up yet Macca!”

I steadied myself by placing one hand on the headboard, poised for the jump that would take me across the room when suddenly, my legs were pulled out from under me as I fell backwards onto the bed, the feel of the soft mattress against my back as big a surprise as the feel of a solid body landing atop my legs, succeeding in pinning me forcibly to the bed, my legs and body trapped as my arms lay free at my sides.

Paul laughed with fiendish glee, his body shaking as he continued to sit on top of me, the vibrations of his lithe frame felt throughout my entire body. His hazel eyes crinkled at the edges as he looked down on me, as I, with genuine defeat, pounded the back of my head against the mattress.

“Well, well, Johnny,” Paul laughed, a self-satisfied grin on his face. “Looks like you won’t be getting up anytime soon. Now how could you possible think that you’d escape? After all, haven’t I foiled your bloody little childish pranks before?” He rested his elbows on my chest, as he brought his face down close to mine, his warm breath washing over my face as he continued to observe smugly. “How could you possibly think that it wouldn’t happen again? Now your pride has been bruised, your ego shattered, just because you wanted to fuck around by taking my guitar pick. Was it all worth it? And then”

And so, Paul continued to gloat, that lovely voice of his beginning to grate on me nerves as the prick went on and on and on about how he had bested me again, something that never happened all that often, no matter what he liked to think. I closed my eyes, trying to tune the voice out, but it was to no avail. The voice continued, every word that fell from his lips succeeding in annoying me to even greater heights, almost like the endless tapping of rain flowing steadily into a paper cup.

“…but no, you just had to…”

Suddenly I couldn’t take it any longer, my need to shut him up overpowering everything else, even my modicum of common sense. So, without thinking, I raised my hands and placed them on the back of Paul’s head, my fingers threading through the soft hair at the nape of his neck. The words slowly seemed to fade away as I, in one smooth movement, pulled his face close to mine, craning my own neck upwards, as my lips captured his open mouth in an almost, but not quite, chaste kiss, finally succeeding in completely shutting up my gloating friend. However, the method that I used left quickly ignored questions flying through my own head.

The minute my lips caressed Paul’s softly, a light and simple touch, a faint sigh got caught in my throat, a sound somewhere between slight satisfaction and fearfulness. I could feel his body become rigid, in surprise or disgust, I did not know, and somewhere at the back of my head the thought that disgust might be running through Paul gave birth to a feeling of dejection in me. His mouth was soft under my own, closed loosely as I gently pressed my lips to his, the meeting of skin against skin, touching for the briefest moment. A small voice in the back of my head dared me to slightly part my lips, to trace the outline of his mouth with my tongue, gently seeking entrance. Since I was never one to back down when faced with a dare, I did just that. I flicked my tongue at the ends of his mouth, parting it ever so slightly, my tongue slowly encased within. Gently, I caressed the roof of his mouth, my tongue sweeping back and forth, massaging his tongue with my own. The tang of tobacco assaulted my senses, an intoxicating mix of the delicate tint of nicotine mixed with the more prominent taste of sugary sweet tea. The muscles in his neck almost imperceptibly softened, as my fingers, of their own violation, drew small circles on the soft skin, my fingertips lightly grazing the hairline. I lightly pulled him forward, his hands still resting on my chest, trapped between our bodies.

The feeling was indescribable, unlike anything I had ever felt before. Panting slightly, I slowly moved my lips away from his mouth, my eyes closed as a small moan came forth unbidden from between my parted lips, a low groan of need that sounded especially loud in the near quiet of the room. However, that was all it took, the sudden sound penetrating my hazy senses, followed by a shock that hit me like a double-decker bus, stunning me into a painful awareness. Frantically, I moved my face away, and the kiss was over, my head, dejectedly, falling back onto the bed. A quick, heavy-lidded glance gave me an eyeful of a pale, shaken face and wide hazel eyes, my eyes closed tightly in a mere second to block the sight. In the seconds that passed, an awkward and oppressive silence descended upon us.

Time slowly ticked by, and what felt like hours was probably nothing more than a few intensely uncomfortable minutes. It was an utter stillness, our bodies fixedly held in the same position, almost as if we were set in stone. Disjointed thoughts in the form of questions ran through my head. _“What just happened? Why did I kiss Paul? Why did I enjoy it so much? What’s going to happen now?”_ My head moved from side to side on the bed, rolling across the mattress, taking on a mind of its own. I just did not know what had gotten into me. Why the fuck would I kiss Paul like that? I am not a fucking queer, I know that. I mean, I never had been, had I?

After what seemed like an eternity, Macca silently got off me, the comfortable weight of his body no longer pressing me into the bed, allowing me to curl onto my side, my eyes still tightly closed, not willing and not able to face the loathing that would be present on Paul’s face. What a laugh, the mighty John Lennon afraid. I felt the bed shift slightly underneath me, the erratic creaking of springs followed by the steady sound of footsteps. I resisted the urge to look back at Paul, my body tense as a pair of feet encased in winkle pickers moved away from the bed, directly followed by the hollow slam of my bedroom door. My body still curled on its side, my back to the door, my eyes still shut, that battered old Elvis LP still playing in the background.


End file.
